Witchmate (Skeleton Key) (2 page)

Emma slowed, but a second zap of electric pain herded her straight toward him. Ten feet away now, she watched as the muscles under his skin moved and shifted like cocooned snakes. Impossibly, his skin darkened, his nose elongated, his ears grew pointed, and when she was almost upon him, he flashed the largest, sharpest teeth she’d ever seen. Some kind of beast man? He sure as hell wasn’t human. She quickly looked at his companions, and they were huge werewolf-like creatures, too.  Had she fallen into a horror movie? Or was this really Hell?

Where am I?

“Run and hide, you little idiot,” the beast roared. He grabbed her by the arms, and she briefly felt the soft fur that covered his skin. He propelled her forward and then he and his companions shot into the forest, chasing the reversing light. Ferocious howls of rage were the last sounds Emma heard before she slammed face-first into a huge tree, and blacked out.

Keir D’San of the San fe Sang tribe stared at the crazy woman as she ran straight at him, fear and panic coloring her expression. She wore all black, so her body looked like an undulating shadow in the thick of the night. She moved slowly, too slowly, in her human form—and she smelled nothing like a wolf, either.

Had a witch gotten caught in her own trap? Was it possible that the enemy was playing right into his hands? Because he was wolfkind, his vision was designed for both day and night, and as the woman ran closer, he saw that she lacked the tale-tell signs of witchcraft. For one, her eyes were the color of a midnight sky. Witches all had light gray eyes, pale skin, and black hair. He’d seen witch children once, and knew they didn’t start out that way, but it was as if magic bleached the color from them.

The woman wasn’t wolfkind either, because she was short and slight, where werewolves were tall and built for hand-to-hand combat.

“Run and hide, you little idiot,” he yelled. He pushed the stranger behind him and finished transforming into his second self. Thoughts of the woman disappeared as he waited for his chance to exact revenge.

Earlier, he and his guards had been in a conclave with five clan leaders, planning a coordinated attack on Sanlousis, the witches’ royal city.  The attacks from the witches had grown less and less over the past couple of years, but he feared they were biding time to mount a larger attack like the one they’d used to take down Surrock.

On the way back, they’d been ambushed by a group of elemental witches. The surprise attack had cost him Mila and Niklas. He mourned their deaths even as he and his guard sought to escape the surge of deadly magic. He’d come across it before in battle, but only once, and the elementals who cast the spell depleted their magic, leaving them unable to defend themselves.

There had been no peace for him or any wolf since.

How had the witches known the path they would travel? Only the most trusted around him knew of the meeting. Besides, werewolves didn’t bargain with witches. That kind of treason meant instant death. He waited at the edge of the magic with the remaining survivors, Toland, Mika, Amile, and Thadeus. The twins, Toland and Thadeus, were his second and third in command. As such, they flanked Mika and Amile. Keir took the center, so he could, as it was his responsibility, lead the pack. He would make those witches pay for the deaths of his friends. They waited for the magic to ebb enough for them to track the witches without getting their fur singed.

Out of the darkness, more than a dozen witches appeared, creating a semi-circle protected by green flames of magical fire. This could not be the same group that manifested the wave of death. He’d never had two factions hit them at once. Witches drew their energy from the natural world around them, which meant it wasn’t an endless source. Too many pulling on the same area meant they would run out of power fast. So, the fact that they were cooperating together alarmed Keir.

“Battle up,” he snarled to his fighters.

The witches dropped their fiery shield and took aim at the wolves, throwing fireballs and electric bolts.

His second, Toland, dove and leaped and roared, all the while dodging the magic projectiles as he drew closer to a group of five off to the right. His brother Thadeus, Keir’s third, did the same moving to the left. After they both took out several witches with swift efficiency, the ones in front, the eight who focused on Keir, began to falter. Mika and Amile brought up the rear on his attack, and when he killed the lead witch, her pitch black hair crackling with energy, as he twisted her head until her neck broke, the others—magic depleted—took off toward the witchland borders.

“Keir?” Mika asked, a question in her gravelly voice. Mila, one of their fallen, had been her cousin. He wouldn’t deny her vengeance.

He nodded. Both she and Amile bellowed and took after the retreating enemy. None of them would live to see morning. None but one. Toland dragged a live male witch by the hair and dropped the villain in front of his alpha.

“I figured you’d want to question him.” He grasped the man’s wrists and wrapped them with witchvine, a rare plant that prevented the gathering of magic. It was a powerful tool in the fight against their sworn enemy. Toland whacked the witch in the back of the head. Unconscious, he dropped to the ground. Tol shook his head. “They never learn.”

“No, they don’t,” Keir agreed. Someone had told the witches about tonight’s meeting, and he wanted to know who. “Thadeus,” he said to his third. “Wait for Mika and Amile then get back to camp. Toland, you bring in the prisoner.”

Toland raised a brow. “And the strange woman?”

“I’ll haul her back myself.”

“She’s not a wolfkind,” Thadeus said.

“She’s not a witch either,” Keir replied.

Toland followed Keir, dragging the witch behind him. “Impossible. She must have some kind of powerful magic camouflage.”

Keir shook his head. Witches weren’t stupid, especially not the queen. If she’d found a way to alter a witch’s appearance, why would she turn the chosen fool into a weakling who ran from magic?

“Over there,” said Keir. “Is she dead?”

They reached the base of the massive tree. Keir crouched down and scooped her from the mossy forest floor. “She breathes.”

Toland joined Keir. “What did you do to her?”

“Nothing. She did this to herself.” He pointed to the large knot on her forehead. He used his forefinger and thumb to pry open one of her eyelids. He held it open so that Toland could see. “Blue eyes.”

“Birth defect?”

“It would be the first we’ve ever encountered.” Keir shrugged. “The magic harmed her.” He turned the woman over and pulled up the back of her torn shirt. A raised blister spanned her lower back. “If she were a witch, she would have absorbed the elemental magic.”

“If she were wolfkind, she would have avoided it.”

“Exactly,” Keir said. “She is something I’ve never seen before. So until I figure out if she is friend or foe, we keep her close.”

“And if she proves to be a witch trick?”

“Then I’ll kill her.” Even as he said the words, he gazed at the delicate curve of her lips, her sharp but feminine high cheekbones, and her slightly crooked pert nose, and all he wanted to do was cover himself in her scent.
Wow,
Keir thought.
Maybe I’m the one who hit my head
.

“You okay?”

“Yes, we should go.”

Toland nodded. He threw the groggy prisoner over his shoulder. The witch moaned and feebly squirmed so Toland turned, knocking the man’s head against the nearest tree. “Stop it.” The witch moaned but stopped trying to jerk out of Toland’s grip.

“Always making friends,” Keir said.

Toland smiled. “I’m a people person.”

Thadeus, Mika, and Amile caught up to them a few miles into the forest. The two female wolfkind were dark with blood.

“One got away,” Mika spat, the fire of her revenge unsated.

Amile put her arm around the other woman. “He will be a cautionary tale, my friend. They lost many tonight.”

“I don’t know what they thought they would accomplish,” Thadeus said.

Toland gripped his brother’s arm. He gestured to Keir. “They thought they’d weaken us by taking out our
domiscin
.”

As
domiscin
, Keir was the leader for all wolfkind tribes, even though each clan had an alpha who managed daily problems. It was the mantle responsibility his father had worn before him and his father before.

Thadeus growled. “They thought wrong.”

Keir gave his remaining guards a grim nod. He gripped the woman, who he’d thrown over his shoulder, with his forearm across her legs. A satchel she wore on her back fell to the ground. He stooped to pick it up then circled his finger in the air. “Let’s get back to the clan.”

It neared daylight as they arrived at their current base camp. Living quarters were built from wood and canvas, materials easy to move and easy to leave behind. They were nomadic out of necessity. Werewolves who put down roots were easier to track and kill. The past century of fighting had been a lesson in warfare against their magic-wielding foes. Unlike the witches, who were fond of setting up towers to isolate themselves, wolfkind groups roamed in packs and were always on the move.

The woman over his shoulder groaned, and her weight shifted, alerting Keir to her return to consciousness. She’d taken a hard hit in the head. When Lis, the tribe’s healer, came out of his hut to check the traveling party for injuries, Keir handed her off like a sack of flour.

“Take her to my place. Check her.”

Lis raised a brow but didn’t challenge Keir’s order.

“Toland.” He gestured to his second. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence that a group of twenty witches happened upon us today, and there is only one way they would have known how to find us to set up this ambush. There is a traitor in our midst.”

“Agreed.” Toland looked around, assessing the tribe members who had come out to greet them when they returned. “Who do we trust?”

“I trust you.” And he meant it. Even though Toland had a twin brother, Keir and he had always been close since childhood. “I trust your judgment.”

Toland nodded sharply. He pulled his shoulders back and lifted his chin. “I will not fail you,
Domiscin San
,” he said using Keir’s formal title of leadership for the San fe Sang.

Keir put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “I know you won’t.”

About a half hour later, Lis rejoined Keir and Toland. “I treated the large burn wounds on her back and the knot on her head. She’s unconscious again. Her pulse is strong, and her breathing is normal. Or at least I think so.”

“You think so?” Keir asked.

“She is neither witch nor wolfkind, I have no idea what’s normal for her.” Lis studied Keir. “Your scent clings to her, which is unusual, except for—” He frowned. “Are you feeling the mating call?”

Was he feeling the call? Or what his kind called the
choosing
? Before he could answer, Toland came to his rescue.

“Bah,” he said. “Not with her, Lis. The woman is not wolf, so she must be witch. No other kind has existed in all our history.” He paused, his eyes widening. “Maybe she’s the witch in the woods.”

Keir laughed. “That tale meant to frighten wolf pups? You can’t be serious.”

The Korridan Forest’s west boundary was marked by the River of Tears that was two hundred feet wide. Its rushing rapids made it beyond treacherous. The river ran through both witch and wolfkind territory and ended at Widow Falls, a waterfall so fierce and huge none could cross it. No one who looked over the edge would see the bottom of the falls, either.

Wolfkind elders and parents told the younglings about “the witch in the wood” whose grief ran so deep with loss that her tears created the river, and if a child went down there, she would cast a spell to catch and drown them. Keir knew it was a scare tactic, but even so, he always felt a bone chill when he traveled close to the area.

“What do you think, Lis?” asked Toland.

Lis shrugged, his massive shoulders almost pinching his ears. “If she were made of magic, she would be gone. No magic is self-sustaining.”

“She was burned by the magic. If she were a creature of the witches, she would have absorbed the wave of lightning,” Keir said. Why was he defending her? Why this stranger who, other than carrying her for many miles, he knew nothing about? Because she made his heart pound and his body rejoice? It wasn’t a good enough reason.

“Hmm.” Toland tapped his chin. “I don’t know.”

Lis, shorter than Toland, but wider in build, circled Keir’s second, checking him over for signs of fresh wounds. Toland took Lis’s hand when the healer tried to push up the bottom of his shirt. He looked down at doctor, his gaze suddenly gentle. “Don’t fuss, Lis. Go check on the others. I think Mika took a wound to her thigh.”

“Tell me the truth, Tol. Are you hurt?” Lis asked.

Toland shook his head. “You can check for yourself privately later.”

Lis smiled. “I’ll hold you to it.” He took his hand back from Toland and gave Keir a respectful nod before taking his leave to help the others.

“When will you take him as your mate, Toland?”

His second raised an eyebrow. “When you take a mate, I’ll take a mate.” He frowned. “Was Lis serious about the choosing? You feel it for her?”

“I feel something for her. I cannot name what.”

“She’s dangerous to us. To you. Do not give in to your urges.”

Easier said than done, my friend.
He cursed his body for being drawn to a woman who should not exist. But despite what he’d told Toland, he could not ignore the well-known signs of the mating call. For whatever reason, the beautiful stranger had elicited this primordial response. He knew better than to try and fight it. But how would he convince the woman she belonged to him?

“Mating and breeding go together,” Toland said. “I won’t have a child of my own.” The abrupt confession was uncharacteristically frank.

“The witches have made sure that there are plenty of children who need fathers if you and Lis so desire it.”